The Chloe Nashville: Where Historic Bones Meet Intentional Design

Mar 24

Nashville has no shortage of hotels. But The Chloe, tucked along Acklen Avenue in the Hillsboro Village neighborhood, is doing something different. It's not trying to compete with the rooftop bar and neon energy of Broadway. It's leaning into something quieter, richer, and far more considered: the kind of hospitality that asks you to slow down and actually feel where you are.

"Designed to be lived in from morning coffee to last call."

The Chloe Nashville began as two historic 1920s cottages with a musical legacy that most properties would have bulldozed without a second thought. These buildings once housed pioneering record labels—Asylum Records and Spirit Music—where songs by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Chris Stapleton, and George Jones took shape. Rather than erasing that history, the design team treated it as the foundation.

That instinct, to honor what's already there, is exactly what separates great hospitality design from generic renovation. The result is a 19-room boutique hotel where the architecture still breathes.

Sara Ruffin Costello's Signature Touch

The Chloe Nashville was designed by Sara Ruffin Costello, the creative force also behind The Chloe in New Orleans. Her approach here is deeply familiar to anyone who appreciates layered, collected interiors: coffered ceilings, salvaged wood floors, and original brickwork that nods to Nashville's warehouse district roots, all in conversation with modern furnishings and finishes that feel current without being trendy.

This is the design philosophy we talk about constantly at No.15 Studio—interiors that don't try too hard to be of the moment, because they're rooted in something more durable than trend. Costello's spaces feel personal rather than staged, like rooms that have been lived in and loved, not styled for a photoshoot.

Details That Earn Their Place

"These walls wouldn't talk, they'd sing.”

Every room at The Chloe carries the same commitment to intentional selection. Bellino Italian linens. Custom furniture and handwoven rugs. Local art and ceramics chosen not as decoration but as texture. Marshall record players paired with curated vinyl collections, a direct nod to the building's musical DNA. Even the signature coyote sigil, hidden in unexpected corners of the property, rewards the kind of slow, curious attention that good design always invites.

Spaces That Invite Lingering

Beyond the guest rooms, The Chloe offers something Nashville's hotel landscape rarely prioritizes: outdoor space designed for genuine use. Lush gardens, a pool with no closing time, wide porches made for sitting with something cold in hand. There's also a listening library stocked with vinyl, a rare, unhurried amenity in a city that moves fast.

Three bars and a Creole-meets-Southern restaurant helmed by Chef Matt Regan (formerly of Sylvain in New Orleans' French Quarter) complete the picture. The culinary program carries the same philosophy as the interiors: rooted in a sense of place, layered with personality, and not trying to be everything to everyone.

What It Gets Right

From a design perspective, The Chloe Nashville is a study in restraint and specificity. The temptation with boutique hotels especially in a city like Nashville where hospitality concepts compete loudly for attention is to overload the narrative. The Chloe resists that. It tells one story well: this building has history, this city has soul, and this is a place where both are worth sitting with.